Facebook Is Going Back to School

Facebook Is Going Back to School

A small start-up company called Inigral is trying to bring back some student-centric functionality to Facebook with one of the first enterprise applications for the social network. The new application is called Schools and will allow students to view their courses via Facebook and communicate with classmates and friends that have opted in to the application.

Facebook users currently can track your courses and communicate with classmates and friends. In fact Inigral already has a Facebook app called Courses, which the company says is the most popular Course Management System on Facebook. Schools is different. The Facebook application is managed by the institution not the students and is plugged in to the school's database giving educational institutions more control over how and what information is shared.

Students who opt in to the application can view their entire course calendar within Facebook and if they add or drop a course at the registrar's office those changes will be immediately reflected in the Schools application. Schools is more than just course registration though, it includes functionality for student organizations such as clubs and teams, residence halls and so on. Each organization, class and friend has a wall within the app where students can interact with members of the various facets of their lives.

Schools is in private beta at Abilene Christian University in Texas at the moment, but according to TechCrunch the company hopes to go public in time for spring semester 2009. You can see an introductory video of Schools here.